Community Marketing 101

This 101 GUIDE outlines the top marketing activities you can engage in to attract, encourage and retain members in your community. Marketing plays a crucial role in developing and maintaining a successful online community. Your marketing activities should be geared towards attracting, keeping and engaging members.

Community Marketing 101: Articulate your community's purpose Define your audience Assign a community administrator Launch your community Welcome new members Maintain regular communications Host regular events Tell a friend Implement incentive programs Maintain ongoing dialogue Encourage members to fill out and maintain their Personal Profiles Note: A prerequisite to this guide is the Community Building 101 Guide.

1. Clearly Articulate your Community's Purpose

Defining its purpose will dictate its structure and the resources needed to support and facilitate the community. Are you an Intranet, Extranet, Web Site, other?

IGLOO Hot Tip: Hold focus groups or brainstorming sessions with potential members to provide suggestions for the way users intend to use their community. This will create ownership in the community as their ideas are being implemented.

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2. Define your Audience

Who do you want to participate in your community? Develop specific messaging for the different target audiences of the community. Highlight Benefits for potential users: Outline how members will benefit from participating in your community.

 IGLOO Hot Tip: Identify the key “pain points” of your audience and try to ensure that your community addresses them. As well, select champions or advocates who can act as evangelists for your community in each target group.

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3. Assign a Community Administrator

Assign a vibrant, energetic Community Administrator to run the day-to-day operations of your community. The major function of this role is to stimulate interest and activity by:

• Communicating with members
• Promoting the features, functions and benefits
• Marketing programs and events
• Supporting questions, comments, issues and ideas

IGLOO Hot Tip: Make sure that you select an individual that is comfortable with using the internet, email, forums, blogs and other communication technologies. Ideal qualities for this role are individuals who are self starters, outgoing and organized.

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4. Launch Your Community

Launch your community around an event to introduce the community to potential members. The launch announces that the community is ready for use. Publicize the launch on the Internet, on major search engines, in a press release, email campaign, newsletter, etc. A launch plan should be developed with deliverables, milestones and clearly articulated measurable objectives. Be sure to get your community linked on as many external web sites as possible. By doing this you will increase your search rankings on sites such as Google™ and Yahoo!.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Be sure to purchase or secure an easy to remember URL (web address) for your community. This will help members remember your community and add brand value.

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5. Welcome and Highlight New Members

Make your community a welcome place. Offer help and support in all areas. Always greet new members. Send an email to new members within 24 hours of registration. Outline the highlights of the community—articles, discussions, blogs, content and interesting upcoming events. Tell them how to get started and encourage them to contribute by bringing their own content, issues or relevant events and sharing them with others.

Keep communications regular and consistent. Follow up is key.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Create a public community blog which allows members to communicate and interface with the Community Facilitator to ask questions, provide feedback, ideas or comments.

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6. Maintain Regular Communications

Write a regular newsletter (monthly or quarterly) showcasing what members are doing within the community, success stories and tips and tricks.  Send regular email updates. These should be short and relate to a specific topic such as a contest, new partner joining, etc.

Focus on content that can be key driver to your site to improve “stickiness” i.e. users stay longer and publicize this content. Also highlight new features, community tools & events.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Create and publish a monthly or quarterly Community Newsletter or E-mail Update using the Announcements Tool and send it to community members.

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7. Host Regular Events

Host/post regular events to drive people to your community. These can be conferences, meetings, “fire side chats”, interactive blog sessions and chats and publicize them both internally and externally as well. If possible, video these events and post them in the community.

Have members blog at an event… providing updates, comments and insights

IGLOO Hot Tip: Encourage Members to submit events to the Calendar regarding community activities. This will keep members engaged regardless of geographic boundaries.

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8. Tell a Friend and Find Champions

Encourage members to bring in interesting participants and members to the community.

• Encourage your members to “Tell a Friend” about the community.
• Put a link in the navigation bar.
• Participants can be brought in as guests as part of a speaker series, for example, and might stay as a regular contributor—attracting new members in the process.
• Create a “Link to Us” program to raise the visibility of your community on the web. Put the copy and html code on your community for quick and easy download.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Start a "Tell a Friend" program within the community. Highlight members who bring in new members.

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9. Implement Incentive Programs

Encourage participation by creating incentive programs. Incentive programs are great for promoting community participation and increasing the “stickiness” of the community. Typical programs could include contests, scholarships, awards, challenges, loyalty programs, recognition, etc.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Provide incentives programs to stimulate usage and community "stickiness".

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10. Maintain Ongoing Dialogue

Encourage members to send their feedback, suggestions, new ideas for features and comments via blogs, discussion forums and surveys. Put a link or form right in your community. Have administration pointers readily available where members can access Online Help (docs, files, etc) and the Community Administrator's and Technical Administrator’s contact information.

IGLOO Hot Tip: Create a "Help Desk" area in the community. You should also encourage/promote members to contribute their feedback and comments in the Help Desk area.

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11. Encourage Members to fill out Personal Profiles

Encourage people to complete their personal profiles and include their knowledge, skills, educations, experience. Let members know that this is a great way to find other members within the community. This will make it easier to seek out peers and other experts by personal interests, member interests, searchable discussions, etc.

IGLOO Hot Tip: The Community Facilitator should encourage all members to complete their "Member Profile" as soon as they log in to the community for the first time.

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For an overview of marketing tactics you can implement to effectively promote and market your site, visit our online Marketing Toolkit.